‘Bridesmaids’ uses gross-out humor to get laughs
”
Bridesmaids,
”
penned by Kristen Wiig of Saturday Night Live fame and Annie
Mumolo, is the female equivalent of
”
The Hangover.
”
Unfortunately, it’s just not as funny.
While Annie’s (Kristin Wiig) life is falling apart, things are
looking up for her best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph). Annie is
working at a jewelry shop because she put all her savings into
starting a cake shop with her boyfriend, who left her before the
place went belly up. She hates the job in the jewelry shop and she
shares an apartment with a very strange brother-sister duo from
Australia. Her only prospect of love consists of booty calls from
Ted (Jon Hamm,) who wants her out of his apartment before
morning.
‘Bridesmaids’ uses gross-out humor to get laughs
“Bridesmaids,” penned by Kristen Wiig of Saturday Night Live fame and Annie Mumolo, is the female equivalent of “The Hangover.” Unfortunately, it’s just not as funny.
While Annie’s (Kristin Wiig) life is falling apart, things are looking up for her best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph). Annie is working at a jewelry shop because she put all her savings into starting a cake shop with her boyfriend, who left her before the place went belly up. She hates the job in the jewelry shop and she shares an apartment with a very strange brother-sister duo from Australia. Her only prospect of love consists of booty calls from Ted (Jon Hamm,) who wants her out of his apartment before morning.
So when Annie sees Lillian’s engagement ring, she has trouble bottling up her jealousy. But when Lillian asks her to be the maid of honor at her wedding to Dougie (Tim Heidecker,) she agrees because Lillian is her oldest friend.
So start the shenanigans. Because when you agree to be in someone’s wedding party, it doesn’t just mean dealing with the bride and groom for one day. It involves a whole slew of activities leading up to the big day. It also includes managing a lot of different opinions from the other bridesmaids, which can be a delicate process when people have different ideas.
Annie has to navigate the pre-wedding activities with Megan (Melissa McCarthy), Lillian’s sister-in-law-to-be, Rita (Wendi McLendon-Covey,) a relative of Lillian’s, Lillian’s college friend Becca (Ellie Kemper) and Helen (Rose Byrne,) the wife of Dougie’s boss. Helen and Annie begin a competition for Lillian’s affections at the engagement party, when they try to one-up each other by toasting the happy couple.
Annie is so upset on her way home from the fancy country club party she is swerving all over the road. Officer Nathan Rhodes (Chris O’Dowd) pulls her over for drunk driving. She isn’t drunk, she explains, just really angry at someone. As he writes up a ticket for her to get her broken taillights fixed, Nathan starts to feel sorry for her. He decides to let her go with a warning to fix it. He even recommends a mechanic who will do it for cheap.
It’s the first of many encounters between Annie and Nathan – the only scenes that make the movie feel genuine. During the scenes between Annie and Nathan, the writers seemed to stop trying for the cheap laughs and instead they get some emotion out of the characters. Annie’s responses to Nathan make sense more than her irate actions at so many of the pre-bridal events.
If Annie and Nathan’s camaraderie offer the best scenes, the worst scene is the one where the girls go shopping for bridesmaids’ dresses. The girls eat at a Brazilian restaurant before the fitting, where they all pig out on meat-heavy meals. When they arrive at the fancy shop, Annie hasn’t made reservations so they won’t even buzz the girls in to look around. Helen, who is rich and well-known, one-ups Annie again when the shop owner let’s them in when Helen announces who she is.
Annie is short on money so she wants to go for a cheaper dress, while Helen, of course, wants to go for dresses that are $800 or more. Unfortunately, in the middle of trying on dresses, the women all become feverish and sweaty. It seems they all have a bout of food poisoning – all except Helen who declined to eat a heavy meal before a dress fitting. The stomach flu leads to a scene with a high gross-out factor that required me to avert my eyes.
The money woes continue when the girls are planning the bachelorette party and the bridal shower. Annie wants to take Lillian to her family’s lake house. All the other women want to go to Las Vegas. Annie also has a fear of flying, an issue since they live in Milwaukee, which is quite a distance from Nevada. Helen, with faux niceness in her voice, offers Annie a sedative and a drink. That combination, of course, leads to some problems.
Annie seems to be ruining every wedding activity, though some of it isn’t all her fault. The biggest problem Annie has is that she is not taking control of her life, and is instead stuck in a woe-is-me state of mind. The main thing that pulls the movie, and Annie, out of the funk is Chris O’Dowd’s performance.
